


Finding Hope

by dasakuryo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasakuryo/pseuds/dasakuryo
Summary: Poe feels his mum has lost her hope. He needs to help her find it again.





	Finding Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a post thread on tumblr. I took some liberties with the time-line, specifically when Poe got hold of that lovely droid :)

Kes Dameron tiptoes, barefoot, into the living room. He hears thuds, the shuffling of steps. His mind wanders to Poe and Shara, both sleeping down the hall to his left. His fingers twitch —ready to curl and ball his hand into fists if the situation calls for it.

He cranes his neck and glances into the room from his vantage point behind the cupboard. He can see the figure raising from their crouch, he starts to see now the outline contrasted against the dim golden rays of sunrise. It raises to its feet, suddenly silhouetted against the light peering through the blinds behind it and the window to its left.

Kes fists unclench.

“Poe, what are you doing?”

The six-year-old startles and nearly falls of the couch he’s standing on. The light is weak, plays shadows on his face, but Kes can see his dark eyes rounding and mouth agape.

“I’m going to help mum,” he declares, there’s a low toot.

When Kes gets closer he sees BB-8 by the boy’s side. The droid is not the only thing he takes notices of— he feels something tugging at his chest at the sight, as if something had broken and shattered. A fond, trembling smile breaks on his face, he kneels on the floor.

“Mum needs her hope back,” Poe mutters meeting his father’s gaze for a fleeting second, the determination hardening his soft infant features with tension lines across his cheeks. Then his fingers and eyes go back to concentrate on the task at hand.

Kes can’t swallow down the lump that has suddenly taken hold of his throat.

“So Beebee and I are going to bring it back,” Poe declared in a murmur, “like they did.”

Kes brings a hand to his mouth, swallows and takes a deep breath to keep the sob at bay, while he feels his eyes burning, brimming with unshed tears. He ruffles his son’s curls, even though the need to pull him into a hug aches in his veins.

Poe keeps struggling with the tape, trying to get the flimsi to stick to the durasteel. Poe lips are twitched in a pout, concentration wrinkling his face. Kes reaches out and grabs the tape from his hands. Poe makes a sound in protest, something in between a whine and a groan, but he cuts a piece of the adhesive, turns it over and joins both ends. Poe’s fingers stop twitching over the flimsi. Kes secures it with the folded tape on the back of BB-8 semi-spherical face.

He manages a smile that doesn’t tremble when he smooths the wrinkles of his jacket, fixes the lapels of his shirt.

“It will work, right dad?” his voice is acute, rippling with anticipation and… hope. Kes doesn’t have the courage to contradict him, not now, not when he knows Poe is doing this for Shara, not when he knows this is the child’s way to cope with everything that’s happening, not when he knows this is the way Poe has found to cheer up his mother.

So he nods and smiles at him. There’s suddenly an alien light shining bright on Poe’s eyes, casting off the shadows clouding them moments ago.

“Come on, Beebee, mum needs us!”

 

Kes leans against the door frame and watches over them. Something both aches and tugs at his chest, a mix of overwhelming joy and pulsing dread intertwining. 

Shara, who had been spiritless and dull the past few days, is suddenly giggling —not the short, occasional laughter, no, the acute, careless, blissful giggle that ripples through the silence. 

(That contagious laughter that had always managed to clutch him out from his own darkness, all those years ago.) 

Poe, eyes clouded and hunched shoulders for the last couple of days, is now trembling and laughing in his mother’s arms as she tickles him. Somewhere by the bed, BB-8 is emitting a succession of tweets, beeps and toots in celebration.

Poe throws himself in Shara’s chest and snuggles close, Shara frowns and presses a kiss to the top of his head. Fingers raking through the child’s hair when she mutters, “that’s cheating, young man,” her index fingers twirling one of their son’s curls.

Poe laughs. Shara looks up and meets Kes’ gaze. She mouths a thank you, He has to bite down a smile. He shuffles to the bed, and plops himself right next to them, hooking an arm around her and pulling her close. He presses a kiss to  her soft curls, then reaches for her cheek. His fingers join hers, though he dishevels Poe’s curls instead.

“It was Poe’s idea, I can’t take the credit,” he whispers, right before Shara’s lips brush fleetingly on the corner of his mouth in a soft, brief kiss. He revels in the touch, nuzzles her hair. A chuckle echoes in his chest when Poe peers through narrowed eyes in their direction.

The boy straightens and quickly prompts, “mum needed her hope back… It was actually better— because my friends were going to help me— but they didn’t let them sleep over last night—” he speaks so quickly that the words blotter each other out, but Shara’s smile widens upon hearing him and Kes brushes his thumb along her wrist, “I had to improvise—” his voice lowers at the ends, shoulders hunching ever so slightly.

Shara ruffles his hair, “and how did you think of this—” she trails off, there’s a glimmer of sadness when she looks at Poe this time, and Kes’ fingers squeeze her arm, trying to dull it off, trying to wipe off the memories resurfacing.

“They brought hope to the galaxy, when nobody had any—” Poe said, face scrunching up for a brief second before adding, “if they could do that, I can do that too, right?”

(Poe dressing like the captain of the Rogue One squad who had defied orders, sticking a flimsi cut-out of the sarcastic, witty droid  face of his to BB-8; and storming inside the room to the sound of something along the lines of finding Shara’s hope appeared to have done the trick. There had been tears glistening in Shara’s eyes, before she dissolved into giggles together with Poe.)

Shara pulls Poe into a hug, a tight hug that has him laughing and whining in fake protests to pull away —because he’s burying his face in his mum’s shoulder alright. You did, Poe, thank you for the reminder, darling, Shara murmurs, they would have been proud— he would have been proud.

“What about Beebee?” Poe says then, and both Shara and Kes cannot contain the laughter.

“I’m sure Kay would have been proud of you too, Beebee-Ate,” Shara chortles, craning her neck and looking down.

More beeps and tweets.

Kes thanks the day Poe found that holocube of Rogue One. He doesn’t know who took the footage, it doesn’t really matter after all. Leia Organa had found it on the hangar of Yavin IV on top of a crate after the destruction of the Death Star, near the area where rumour had it the rogue soldiers had assembled.

The faces and the looks exchanged spoke of anxiety, pulsing fear but determination, courage and encouragement… hope, in the face of darkness and adversity, when everything seemed lost.  Like it did for them now —putting a smile on Shara’s wary face, lightning up the darkness of worry that had pooled deep withing Poe, curving Kes’ lips into a smile so wide his cheeks hurt from grinning.

It had give them hope to cling on to to keep going. Still smiling, Kes Dameron thanks he can hug his family closer to his chest for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> I have this idea that Shara and Kes told Poe about Rogue One, and I've always headcanoned them both being close to Cassian -Shara specially, so this was bound to happen. Hope you've enjoyed the story! :)


End file.
